


bitter sweet started to rub off on me

by translorastyrell (nerddowell)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: ASOIAF Rare Pair Week, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bisexual Robb Stark, Homophobia, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, M/M, Protective Robb Stark, Resolved Sexual Tension, Slight Internalised Homophobia, Slow Romance, Teen Romance, it's not rarepair week but fuck it it fits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25097704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerddowell/pseuds/translorastyrell
Summary: Renly takes a deep drag, closing his eyes to savour the rush of nicotine, and Robb finds himself once again staring at those full lips wrapped around the end of the cigarette. This time the feeling is located a little further south, and that just confuses him. He’s got nothing against queers, but he’s definitely not one himself - the multiple copies ofNutsandZoounder his bed can attest to that. He’s never thought about another bloke like that in his life, and even if he was about to start, he wouldn’t pick his best mate to get the hots for. Don’t shit where you eat, and all that.Title fromLemon Boyby Cavetown.
Relationships: Renly Baratheon/Robb Stark
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13





	bitter sweet started to rub off on me

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'ed, but cheerleaded by my friends [Reel](http://afewreelthoughts.tumblr.com) and [Beth](http://rensbaratheon.tumblr.com).

His toes are freezing cold inside his sodden Converse as Robb kicks piles of slush into the road, leaving them to melt into dirty brown rivers in the drains. The pavements on the way to school from the estate are meant to have been gritted, but as usual the council don’t seem to care about the ‘rough’ kids growing up on the outskirts of town. He cuts down an alley running past the park, no doubt full of frozen dog shit and with icicles of piss clinging to the sides of the lampposts, to the corner shop. Inside, he buys a Ginster’s and a can of Red Bull, shoving them into his school bag. It’ll mean another day of going hungry at lunch, but he’s used to that by now.

When he leaves the shop it’s started to rain, turning the already sleety streets into mires of muddy snow, fag ends and crisp packets and the usual detritus of Christmas lying on the flagstones like confetti. Rain drips down his collar, soaking into his school blazer; he jams his hands in his pockets and tries to walk under as many awnings and porticos as he passes to keep dry, dodging dog-walkers and the middle-class families taking their beautifully polished children to their smart, shiny schools on the other side of the river. He stops when he reaches a grim cul-de-sac of concrete flats all crammed together, rubbish bags and bricks and bits of broken plumbing clogging up their narrow gangways, waiting for the yellow door on the sixth balcony to bang open and his friend to be summarily turfed out as he always is at this time on a Monday morning.

The door opens, a blast of Robert’s voice like a foghorn telling Renly to get the fuck out of his sight, and his friend slopes out of the door, shirt crumpled and threadbare school sweater unravelling at the cuffs and hem. Robb loiters until Renly joins him, pushing his shock of black hair back off his face, and silently passes him the food. He pretends not to know that it’s probably the first thing Renly’s had to eat all weekend, and waits for him to finish wolfing it down before he passes him the Red Bull.

He stays equally silent about the new bruise, shadowy under the thick layer of foundation, under Renly’s right eye, and the cut - most likely from the signet ring Robert wears on his left hand - bisecting Renly’s eyebrow. No makeup can cover that, which is why Renly’s taken to growing his hair out until it hangs in his eyes. Robb can’t help but think that that probably doesn’t help Renly’s case; as far as Robert’s concerned, the only people who have long hair are girls and poofs.

Once Renly’s swallowed the last fizzing mouthful of too-sweet energy drink, he sighs and looks at Robb. His eyes, too tired and world-weary for the fifteen year old boy they belong to, are bloodshot. Another sleepless night with Robert, then, no doubt.

‘How bad is it?’ he asks, and Robb doesn’t pretend not to know what he means.

‘You did a good job with the foundation,’ he says quietly, and nudges Renly’s shoulder gently with his own. ‘C’mon, we’ve got fifteen minutes before school starts.’ The walk over will take at least ten of those minutes, and they can’t afford another demerit each for lateness without letters being sent home. The worst Robb will get is a chewing-out from his mother, of course, but he doesn’t like to think what state Renly will be in if the school sends _another_ letter home to Robert.

Renly nods, picking up his pace, and they make their way to school. Outside, Theon is waiting for Robb, and drags him away without time for as much as an apologetic glance back at Renly. Renly, more than used to it, just hoicks his bag up over his shoulder and heads towards the English block for his registration, whilst Robb and Theon go to their lockers underneath the Science labs.

‘You could at least have said hi to him, Theon,’ Robb remonstrates, and Greyjoy rolls his eyes.

‘Poof.’

‘He’s not a poof, Greyjoy,’ Robb snaps, slamming his locker door closed and glaring at Theon, who raises a cool eyebrow in response. Both of them know about the rumours circling Renly like sharks scenting blood, the whispered stories about him being caught looking for just a second too long in the changing rooms after PE or the way that the blurry photo on his phone that he calls his girlfriend - who is apparently long-distance in Spain - is actually, you know, flesh and blood and a recognisable photo of a reasonably well-known Latina porn star. 

‘He’s doing a pretty fucking good impression of one, then.’

‘Don’t be a dickhead, Theon.’

‘I’m the dickhead? It’s the truth, Robb. He’s as queer as they fucking come.’

‘He’s _not_!’ Robb shouts, banging his fist against Theon’s locker. The door crashes shut, almost trapping Theon’s hand, and there’s a dent in the metal when Robb pulls away, breathing heavily. Theon stares at him for a long time, eyes narrowed. Robb flushes under the scrutiny, the pink of his cheeks clashing with his auburn hair.

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he argues, shifting his books in his arms. ‘You don’t get it, okay? Renly can’t be gay, because - he just can’t, alright? So shut your fat mouth and leave him alone.’

He storms off towards their form room with Theon still staring after him.

* * *

Robb leaves Chemistry to find Renly behind the bike sheds, cigarette lit and dangling between his lips, scribbling frantically in the margins of a battered copy of _The Handmaid’s Tale_ ready for next period’s English class. He perches on one of the heavily graffitied bike racks and kicks his feet up on the seat of a wheelless BMX locked to the next one over. Renly looks up, giving him a wry smile.

‘Five more pages and I’m yours. You know Mr. Cressen’s a slave-driver with chapter annotations, he comes round at the start of every class and _inspects_.’ He licks his thumb to turn the page, and Robb finds himself staring at that quick flash of pink, the peeking of Renly’s tongue between full lips and the chewed-raw edge of his thumbnail. He shivers, pulling the collar of his shirt away from his neck, and looks away.

‘Sorry about Greyjoy this morning,’ he says instead, and drops his legs down to kick at a pile of slush by their feet. It sprays up at Renly, soaking the legs of his school trousers, and he swears. ‘Shit. Sorry.’

Renly gives him a tired smile. ‘S’fine, they’ve seen worse. And I don’t exactly spend my days worrying what Theon Greyjoy thinks of me either, so you don’t have to apologise for him.’ He takes a long drag of his cigarette, burning it down to the filter, and stubs it out on the wall of the bike shed before flicking it away.

Robb smiles, flicking his wet fringe out of his eyes. ‘Sure. But still, he didn’t have to be a prick.’

‘The day Greyjoy learns how to not be a prick is the day the world spins off its axis and plunges us all screaming into the heart of the sun,’ Renly says, rolling his eyes and tucking his book back into his pocket. The school bell rings a moment later; Robb picks his books up off the floor and walks with Renly towards the east block, where Renly has English on the first floor and Robb’s History class is on the ground floor. There’s a moment where they have to dodge a sudden crush of Year Sevens frantically trying to find their classroom before the second bell goes, and they’re suddenly pressed against each other up against a display of Year Eight Drama essays on _A Monster Calls_ ; Robb swears he hears a sound like Renly catching his breath, but when he glances up at him Renly’s staring over his shoulder at the clock on the opposite wall. They step away from each other a moment later, and Robb thinks he must have imagined it.

* * *

At lunch, Robb joins Renly, again behind the bike sheds. It’s their usual breaktime haunt, mostly because the teachers who don’t care about pupils smoking illicitly never bother to come around this particular corner and the rest of the teachers are right there with them. Renly bums a light from Mr. Naharis and passes the cigarette to Robb after taking a drag. Robb doesn’t generally smoke, because his mother’s a bloodhound for that sort of thing and she’d put his balls in a screw-top jar in the fridge if he dared come home with smoke on his clothes, but today he feels the need.

Renly tips his head back against the wall, shaggy dark hair falling back off his face, and exhales a steady stream of smoke out towards the typically English overcast grey sky. Robb watches the purse of Renly’s lips, the cast of Renly’s eyelashes leaving shadows like lace on his cheekbones, and feels a weird sort of fluttering in his stomach, an almost sick feeling. He pushes it to the back of his mind, into the box labelled _Do not think about, ever_ , and takes another drag from Renly’s cigarette.

‘Listen,’ Renly says quietly, shuffling along the wall as one of the Biology teachers came to join their colleagues and everyone shifted accordingly to make room, ‘can I come over to yours tonight? I’ve got a ton of homework, and Robert’s mates are coming over for a poker night.’

Robb is well-versed in the code Renly speaks in at school. Robert is a not-so-small-time dealer around their estate, fencing whatever people bring him, and his ‘mates’ are composed solely of other peons of a certain local drug kingpin. Robert’s ‘mates’ only come over when there’s something fucking dodgy going down somewhere, like a pushback against a rival trying to encroach on their turf, and Renly is firmly of the opinion that the less he knows, the less Robert will have to beat him into silence about later.

Robb nods, passing him the cigarette back and exhaling smoke through his nose. Renly takes a deep drag, closing his eyes to savour the rush of nicotine, and Robb finds himself once again staring at those full lips wrapped around the end of the cigarette. This time the feeling is located a little further south, and _that_ just confuses him. He’s got nothing against queers, but he’s definitely not one himself - the multiple copies of _Nuts_ and _Zoo_ under his bed can attest to that. He’s never thought about another bloke like that in his life, and even if he was about to start, he wouldn’t pick his best mate to get the hots for. Don’t shit where you eat, and all that.

Robb rubs his eyes. ‘I’ll pull the futon out.’

Renly smiles and finishes off the cigarette before stubbing it out. He pushes off the wall a moment later and wanders off in the direction of the playground. It’s not much of a playground, in truth; a typical inner-city outdoor space with tarmacked floor and ten-foot barbed-wire-topped walls encompassing it like a Victorian workhouse or a prison, but there’s the usual group of Year Eleven boys playing football in their shirtsleeves. Renly takes a seat on the fire escape by the DT labs, far enough away to be inconspicuous, and pulls out his Law homework.

Robb perches by his feet, toying with the greying laces of Renly’s trainers. They, like all of his clothes, are hand-me-downs from Robert (the closest of his brothers to Renly’s tall and broad frame) and have gaps in the sides where the sole is peeling away from the canvas upper. When he glances up, Renly’s eyes are following Emmon Cuy across the yard, straying more than once below his waist before he catches Robb looking and quickly glances away.

‘Sorry,’ Robb says, absurdly, and Renly just gives him a tight smile in response, eyes guarded.

Searching for something - anything - to say to cut the tension, Robb nods towards the book open in Renly’s lap. ‘What’s your homework about?’

‘Past papers,’ Renly answers, gnawing his bottom lip. His front tooth, Robb knows, is actually an implant; Robert knocked the real one out once when Renly answered back, and Stannis had to get him an emergency appointment at an expensive dentist to get the fake one put in before anyone at school noticed. It’s a sad truth, of course, that Renly comes into school regularly with bruises shaped like fists and the school never does anything about it, so Robb isn’t sure what Stannis was worried about. ‘Reputation,’ Renly had said, pure and simple, and Robb’s heart had sunk.

He pulls at his own laces, undoing and retying the knots, as Renly studies silently next to him. Every so often, Robb catches Renly’s gaze flash up to the boys playing football; to Emmon’s shoulders as he dives to save an attempted goal, to Bryce’s legs as he shoots, to Loras’ cloud of Afro curls restrained by twin cornrows that whip around his face as he celebrates a goal. He tries to think back to any time he’s seen Renly look at a girl the same way and draws a blank. Not even Jeyne Westerling, who is the prettiest girl in their year and who, it’s whispered between boys in the changing room, even went all the way with one of the Sixth Formers after she got invited as his prom date last year.

Robb thinks of that, and he thinks of Theon’s face that morning as he hissed the word, ‘Poof’, and his stomach churns.

* * *

It rains the whole way home, and by the time they arrive at Robb’s house both he and Renly are soaked to the bone. His little sister Sansa, who’s had an embarrassing crush on Renly since she was eight and Robb first brought him home as a new friend from secondary school, is, naturally, the one to see him pulling his shirt off through the sliver of space between the door and its frame; Robb knows it’s her, because she makes a quiet squealing noise and immediately barricades herself in her and Arya’s room next door.

Renly wraps the towel Robb passes him around his head and starts towelling his hair dry. It’s the perfect opportunity for Robb to look at him, taking in Renly’s broad, tall frame the way he’d seen Renly do Emmon’s at lunch. Renly has broad shoulders, perma-tanned even in the depths of winter, as though he’s got his own personal sun that follows him around keeping him kissed with that beach-ready perfect shade of brown. In reality it’s the half-Greek in him, but that spoils the magic somewhat. He’s slim, still filling out the Year Nine growth spurt that took him from third-tallest in their year group to tallest boy in the school; he has stretch marks on his shoulders and around his waist from the sheer speed of his lengthening out. Robb looks at those silvery marks like tigers’ stripes and wants, weirdly, to run his fingers over them.

He blushes, shaking himself sternly, and turns away to change out of his wet uniform and into dry clothes. He supposes he should feel more self-conscious than he does about changing in front of Renly, given what had transpired at lunchtime, but he figures that if Renly thought about him like that, he’d know about it. So he unfastens his school trousers and shucks them along with his boxers, without a second thought, and holds a towel closed around his waist whilst he digs through his chest of drawers for clean kecks.

He throws Renly a pair when he finds some, and they both get redressed, Renly in a pair of sweatpants and an old football shirt of Robb’s, faded from too many times through the wash. He stretches out on the futon and Robb bundles their soggy school stuff into his laundry hamper.

‘Feelin’ better?’ he asks, and Renly nods.

‘Yeah. Thanks. And thanks for letting me come over.’

Robb waves him off with a ‘psshh’. ‘You know the deal. Whenever you need to come over, you come over, and whenever the time comes to pay me back for that favour, you wingman me with whichever poor girl got unlucky.’

Renly grins. ‘That’s right.’

Robb settles in his desk chair, leaning forward to turn his playstation on. He tosses Renly a controller.

‘Mario Kart?’

‘You’re going down, Stark,’ Renly tells him, and Robb laughs.

* * *

Later, Robb’s siblings have all gone to bed and it’s dark outside. He and Renly climb out of the bedroom window to sit on the roof of the bay on the ground floor, side by side. His fingers are cold and clammy where his hands rest on the roof, all except his pinkie which is warmed by Renly’s lying flush against it. Renly is smoking again, leaning back against the wall and wrapping one arm around his bent knee, tapping the ash out into the gutter, and that fluttering feeling is back in Robb’s stomach as he watches him.

‘Can I ask you something?’ he says, hesitant, and Renly turns to look at him with a quizzical expression. His lips curve into a smile, and Robb’s heart speeds up in his chest, pinkie finger twitching abortedly beside Renly’s. The warmth disappears as Renly raises his hand to take another drag, and Robb misses it like Renly’s reached inside his own body and pulled out that strange source of warmth in his chest.

‘Yeah, go ahead.’ Another drag, another long, curling plume of smoke breathed out between bitten red lips.

‘Are you… gay?’

Renly pauses, his expression morphing from curiosity to wariness. He stubs out the cigarette on the roof tiles and flicks it away, a tiny tan shooting star falling towards the dewy grass of Robb’s front garden. The garden is his mother’s pride and joy, and Robb will probably catch hell from Catelyn later about letting his friend discard cigarette butts in her begonia bed, but that’s the least of his worries right now. The world feels like it’s stopped as Renly holds his gaze, mouth open and poised to say something before it closes sharply. He gives a nonchalant shrug.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘A feeling,’ Robb mumbles, fidgeting with the hem of his tshirt. He threads his hand through his hair, pushing it out of his eyes, and Renly tips his head back against the wall. He sighs, the weight of the world in that exhale of air, and Robb thinks he knows the answer already.

‘You are, aren’t you?’

‘You can’t tell anyone,’ Renly says sharply, fingers shaking as he fumbles his packet of cigarettes open and places another between his lips, digging in his pockets for his lighter. Robb picks it up off the tile and clicks it on, lighting the cigarette for him before handing it back wordlessly.

He lets Renly take a calming drag or two before speaking. ‘I wouldn’t.’

Renly barks out a harsh laugh, tapping the ash off the end. ‘Sure you wouldn’t. Or you wouldn’t mean to, but someone would mention to you that I’d been looking in the locker room and you wouldn’t say anything to disabuse them of the notion. Or you’d hear some prick like Greyjoy shout ‘Poof!’ at me and wouldn’t stop him. Or you’d even join in.’ Renly’s blue-green eyes are hard, and he puffs at his cigarette. Robb bristles, hurt.

‘I wouldn’t join in. Ask Theon. He called you a poof earlier and I almost broke his hand in his locker door.’

Renly pauses, the cigarette halfway to his mouth. ‘You what?’

‘This morning. Theon called you a poof and I told him to keep his fat mouth shut.’ Robb tells him, frowning. ‘So don’t assume I’d immediately join in with dickhead stuff like that. You’re my best mate, Renly.’

Renly stares at him, long, long seconds passing between them, before he puts his hand down, the cigarette burning out to a smoulder. ‘You…’

‘Yeah.’ Robb pushes his hair back off his face again. It needs cutting, he tells himself. He’s not doing it to use up this nervous energy, to unwind the spring coiling tighter in his stomach ready to fire out the other thousand things on the tip of his tongue. Like how he can hardly stand by and call Renly a poof when he’s been watching him get changed this evening after school. When he spent way too much time this lunchtime watching Renly watch other boys. When he’s had this weird fluttering in his stomach whenever Renly looks at him, or touches him, or speaks to him, for years, and now that he lets it out of its _Do not think about this_ box it feels very similar to the way his stomach filled with butterflies that time Jeyne Westerling kissed him during spin the bottle in Year Eight. 

‘Would be a bit hypocritical of me,’ is all he says instead.

Renly’s breath definitely catches this time. Audibly, unmissably. Heart-stoppingly.

‘Would it now?’

‘Yeah,’ he says, and his voice is a squeak. Renly’s leaning towards him, his eyes half-cast in the starlight, lashes long and dark on his cheeks and gaze undeniably fixed on Robb’s half-open lips. Robb takes in a quick, sharp breath as he leans closer, until they’re sharing the same warm cloud of breath vapour in the night air and the goosebumps all over his body have nothing to do with the cold.

‘You gonna kiss me, Stark, or are you just gonna look?’ Renly breathes, and Robb kisses him.

* * *

They lie together in bed, side by side, a little cramped in the single loft bed above the futon Renly’s supposed to be sleeping on. Stripped down to their boxers, trading kisses that run the gamut from lazy to desperate, from slow and exploratory to fervent and hungry as they ride out the tides of lust elsewhere in their bodies. Eventually, with hands sticky and bellies slick, Robb straddling Renly’s hips and leaning down as Renly leans up on his elbows, they let their heartbeats slow from thunder to normal.

‘You’re…’ Renly starts, a slow smile spreading across his lips. His eyes are shining in the moonlight coming in from Robb’s window, hair framing his face and cheeks dimpling.

‘I’m what?’ Robb asks, smiling.

‘You’re _so_ sleeping in the wet spot,’ Renly laughs, rolling them over, and Robb groans, unable to wipe the grin off his face.

**Author's Note:**

> Come throw tomatoes at [my Tumblr](http://jaaskiers.tumblr.com) or, for more Renly/Robb content, follow [our Renly fanblog](http://rainbowguardassemble.tumblr.com)!


End file.
